


Dungeons and Ravens

by mediumtwinkle



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-18 01:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediumtwinkle/pseuds/mediumtwinkle
Summary: Gansey decides that the best way to spend this rainy day is to play Dungeons and Dragons. Some of his friends are more enthusiastic than others. Chaos ensues.





	1. Character Creation

The weather had been simply horrid for a very long time in the town of Henrietta, Virginia. It had been storming for a good week straight, only stopping here and there for the clouds to catch their breath. Lightning was striking power lines every which way to the point that nobody even bothered to try and turn the lights on. The ground was soaked and there was a flood warning on the news stations. “Nothing to worry about” the news anchor would state, “but make sure to stay away from the river”. 

Since the weather had been so bad, Gansey and his friends had not been able to go about their usual exploring. Gansey was of course horribly disappointed about not being able to search for the sleeping Glendower, leaving him in quite the sour mood that the others at Monmouth Manufacturing had to deal with. He could often be found slumped in his desk chair flipping through his journal, reading the long ago memorized pages and trying to find some sort of clue he could research from indoors. Noah had long since given up on trying to cheer him up, and now only watched him study from the other side of the room, shrugging whenever Ronan came out and looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Truthfully, Gansey wasn’t even annoyed about not being able to search for Glendower anymore. He was annoyed about not being able to do anything. The wet streets made it dangerous for the Pig (that is, more dangerous than usual), and he wasn’t planning on walking in this kind of weather, so he was stuck in Monmouth, and the rain didn’t look to be stopping any time soon. It was only when he was looking on the internet desperate for something fun to do inside that he found the solution.

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Ronan sounded absolutely disgusted with the possibility. He was looking at Gansey with his ‘No fucking way’ face, a face that appeared an awful lot on Ronan.

“Dungeons and Dragons!” Gansey said, with his first smile in about a week. “Look, I’ve already thought up the campaign. It’s going to be so much fun! It’s not like you have anything better to do.” Ronan scoffed.

“I have a lot of better things to do. Such as not playing Dungeons and Dragons. I knew you were a nerd but I didn’t think you were that much of a nerd. Friendship over.”

“Ronan come on! You never know if you’re going to like it or not if you don’t try it.”

“Does getting a tattoo hurt?”

“I mean- I mean I imagine so, aren’t you the one with a tattoo?”

“How do you know it would hurt if you never got one?” Ronan gave him a sharklike grin and Gansey folded his arms across his chest. “Just because I’ve never played it doesn’t mean I don’t know it’s lame as fuck.”

“I think it would be a lot of fun!” Both of the boys jumped as Noah’s voice sounded from where Noah hadn’t been before. They turned and sure enough there he was, sitting on the edge of the couch, eyes shining with excitement. “I don’t think I’ve ever played before but I’ve always wanted to try it.”

Ronan crossed over to him and shoved his arm, making him fall into the soft couch cushion. “Who’s side are you on?” Noah picked himself up, laughing.

“Nobody’s side! I just want to play Dungeons and Dragons!” Noah picked up the pillow on the end of the couch and hugged it. “Are we going to? We should get Blue and Adam to play too!”

“Great idea Noah!” Gansey pointed to him and then walked over to his desk to grab his phone. “Hello! Is Blue there?” Gansey held the phone away from his ear a little as the person on the other line shouted for Blue. He waited until he heard the familiar voice.

“Hello?”

“Jane! How lovely it is to hear your voice. We are going to be playing a game of sorts over here today, would you like to join us?”

“What game of sorts?” She mimicked his voice as she said this.

“Dungeons and Dragons!” Gansey heard the call drop. “Hello?” He dialed again. “Hello? Jane, I think I lost you a second ago.”

“No, I hung up on you.” Blue said dryly. Gansey was aghast.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I thought you said we would be playing Dungeons and Dragons and that was ridiculous so I assumed it was a prank call. Was it not?”

“No! We’re going to play Dungeons and Dragons!” 

Noah ran over and yelled into the phone receiver. “It’s going to be so much fun! You have to come!” Gansey sensed Blue considering this over the silence in the phone. Finally, she sighed.

“Yeah alright, when do you want me to come over?”

“As soon as you can! You can make your character once you get here, I have all the sheets ready along with all the dice we need. See you soon Jane!” Gansey heard Blue mutter something that sounded like a farewell but could just have easily been a curse, and he hung up the phone.  
The call with Adam went about the same way, but he agreed to come as well, and soon enough all five of them were huddled around a few stacks of paper off to the side of the main room. Gansey grabbed a mint leaf from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and then clapped his hands together.

“Alright everybody take a character sheet.” The others looked at him with blank expressions. He grabbed one of the character sheets. “These ones.” The others let out various ‘ohhhh’s’ and ‘I knew that’s’ and each grabbed a character sheet. “Now you can be whatever you want to be, sky’s the limit, but if you want some examples you can look in that book right there. Now get character creating!” The others all fought over the book, (Blue managing to win, the others grumbling to themselves) and started making their characters. 

After about half an hour, they seemed to all be done. Gansey smiled brightly at all of them and gestured toward Adam who was on his left. “Why don’t you start Adam? Tell us about your character.” Adam looked very uncomfortable.

“Oh, uh, well he’s a druid.”

“Good! What else?”

“Uh, Lawful Neutral?”

“Excellent! What about his race?”

“He’s an elf I guess.”

“Beautiful! Does he have a name?”

“Um, Adam.” Ronan snorted and Adam turned and glared at him.

“Well that’s alright Adam, he can have your name. I think that will get you more connected with your character! How about you Blue?”

Blue looked very tired. “Okay, so mine is a chaotic good wizard who is a treefolk. Her name is still in the works.”

“How about Jane?” Gansey offered brightly. Blue scowled at him.

“Her name is Ceyna.” She replied angrily.

“That’s great Blue! Wonderful character choices. Lovely. Noah?”

Noah grinned excitedly. “My character is chaotic good just like Blue’s and he’s a bard who carried around a kazoo and he’s a Triton which is a kind of sea person and his name is Jimmy! And look here I’ve drawn him!” The others all turned to look at the drawing which featured a lot of glitter pens and all oooed and aaahed accordingly. 

“That’s wonderful Noah! Ronan? How about you?” Gansey motioned towards Ronan with his palm out.

Ronan smirked. “I’m a half bird half human fighter who is chaotic evil. My name is Chainsaw.” Gansey gave him a withering look. 

“You can’t do that.”

“You SAID I could be anything I wanted. That means I can be a half bird half human fighter who is chaotic evil. Named Chainsaw.”

“Ronan.”

“Bird. Man.”

Gansey stared at him a little longer.

“It’s even in the book Dick, look, it’s called a Kenku or whatever.” Ronan opened the book, and sure enough, there it was. Gansey sighed.

“Alright alright fine. Chaotic evil is really annoying though could you at least change that?”

“Not a chance Richard.”

Gansey put his head in his hands and wiped them down his face. “Okay, fine. Fine. That’s what you are then.” 

They spent the next few minutes rolling for stats, finding that somehow Blue was very lucky with the dice and Noah was just about the worst they have ever seen. Once they had finished rolling, Gansey looked around at all of them. 

“Everybody ready?”

They nodded, some hesitantly. Gansey smiled brightly, looking more alive since the rain started.

“Well then. Excelsior!”


	2. The Exposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gansey starts his campaign, the others are not impressed.

“You are a group of young adventurers-”

“Uh, adventures of various ages.” Gansey turned to Ronan who had already interrupted his opening. 

“Beg pardon?” Gansey asked, putting the paper down and folding his hands in his lap.

“Chainsaw is not a young adventurer. Chainsaw is at least fifty.”

“Ronan can you please just-”

“Adventurers of various ages or I walk.” Gansey sighed and cleared his throat.

“You are a group of yo- adventurers of various ages.” Gansey caught himself before he said his original sentence and looked at Ronan as if to ask if he was pleased. Ronan was never pleased. “You have just finished a grand adventure and are looking for a new one to embark on. You stop in a small village to get a good night’s rest and stock up on supplies. Currently, you are located in a tiny tavern in the middle of the village. You have all gotten the drink of your choice and are happily chatting away when a young man comes up to you. He asks you if you are interested in helping him-”

“We aren’t.”

“Ronan, can you let me finish my exposition please?”

“Nope. It’s boring.”

“Ronan.”

“Fine.”

“Good. Where was I? Oh yes, the man asks if you are interested in helping him. He says that you will be greatly rewarded if you do. You ask what the man needs help with.” This time it was Blue who spoke up.

“Wait, but we didn’t ask what the man needs help with. You can’t just do that for us.”

“I’m the dungeon master, of course I can.”

“But that’s not fair! Isn’t this supposed to be a democracy? Why is it turning into a dictatorship?”

“DICKtator.” Ronan laughed for a good thirty seconds at his own joke before going back to his stony expression. Gansey shrugged it off.  
“That’s where you have it wrong, Jane. I’m the DM and I say you asked what the man needed help with. The man says that the thing he needs to find could involve quite the lengthy search. He needs to know that you are willing to go through dangers to reach the goal. You all agree to the terms.”

“Oh my GOD get to the point already.”

“Well, Ronan, I will, as soon as you stop interrupting me. The man says that you need to find…” Gansey paused for dramatic effect. The others either leaned forward or made the universal arm movement for ‘get on with it’. “The sleeping Glendower.” Groans were heard all around the room.

“No. No! We already have to search for him in real life, we are NOT searching for him in the fictional realm too.” Ronan got up and started pacing around the room. Adam simply slumped down until he was lying on his back. Blue was looking at Gansey with a scowl on her face, and even Noah was raising an eyebrow looking just the slightest bit unpleased. 

“Oh come on guys! This campaign is so cool! I have a bunch of historical facts in here and you’ll get to be like real historians!”

“Gansey,” Blue had crossed her arms. “None of that sounds like fun. Make it cool! We already have Glendower. Give us something new!”

“Blue is kind of right Gansey,” Noah was looking at the floor. “I mean, Glendower is super cool and all, but we want something to take our minds off it for a while. Think of it as a vacation.”

“A vacation?! What do you mean a vacation? We spend our vacations searching too!” Gansey was looking a little upset.

“Gansey, this isn’t going to help the search. There’s nothing we can do about it now, so it would be better to just take a breather and maybe do something a little less historical for now. You’re just going to stress yourself out if you keep thinking about it.” Adam was, as usual, trying to use logic to sway him. Gansey sighed.

“Well, the whole campaign that I wrote was kind of about Glendower, but I guess if you guys would rather do something else-” The others nodded furiously. “I guess I could try to make something up as we go along.” Blue and Noah cheered and Ronan came to sit back down. Adam stayed in his reclined position, and Gansey glanced at his face to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep. 

“Okay, let me start over. You are still a group of adventurers, but this time you are wandering around in a forest.” Blue already looked significantly happier. Adam and Ronan looked a little wary, wondering if the forest had any connection to Cabeswater. “You had entered this forest about two days ago, and you still have plenty of provisions. You don’t really know what you are doing or where you are going, you are just happy to be roaming around, sleeping under the stars.” Blue sighed happily and rested her chin on her hands. “Suddenly, you see a large rock figure in the distance.” Gansey paused and looked at them all expectantly. They all looked expectantly back. He cleared his throat. “This is um, this is where you decide if you want to go over and look at it or not.”

“But I thought you were doing the exposition.” Blue said pointedly. 

“Well, I was, Jane, and then I remembered what you said about it being a democracy. And you all weren’t too happy with my last idea so I figured I would give this one a shot and see if you liked it first.”

“Oh how generous of you.”

“Yes, I thought I was being quite considerate. So do you go check out the rock?”

“Yeah, I wanna go check out the rock! Is it sparkly?” Noah looked much more excited.

“Yes, it is a little sparkly in the afternoon sun that is peaking through the treetops.” 

“Yes! I’m going to roll to run over to the rock!”

“Noah, you really don’t have to roll for that. I’m going to allow you to just go over to the rock.”

“But I wanna roll!” Noah picked up the glittery purple twenty-sided die that Gansey had purchased for him.

“But you- oh alright roll to run over to the rock.” Noah rolled the dice excitedly and it bumped into Ronan’s leg. Ronan looked down.

“Sixteen.”

“Yes!” Noah cheered and Blue patted him on the shoulder. 

“Alright, you run over to the rock with surprising agility and-”

“Can I feel the texture?”

“Yes Noah, you feel the slightly grainy texture of the rock.”

“Nice!”

“Do the rest of you want to go over to the rock?”

“I’m gonna give Czerny a moment alone with the rock but then sure I’ll head over.” Ronan shrugged his shoulders and Noah smiled at him.

“You know, that’s not a very chaotic evil thing to do… perhaps you would be more comfortable with chaotic neutral?”

“No Dick, I meant what I said. Chaotic evil.”

“But-”

“No buts. Just evil.” Gansey pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Whatever you say. How about you two?” He motioned towards Blue and Adam. “Are you going to go over to the rock.?” They murmured their agreement. “Okay, so now all of you are over by the rock. Roll for perception. Adam first, then Blue, then Noah, then Ronan. Right around the circ-”

“I got a seventeen.” Ronan stated before Gansey could finish his sentence.

“Eighteen!” Blue exclaimed triumphantly.

“Aww, I only got an eight.” Noah looked a lot less happy with this roll than the last. Gansey brushed a hand through his hair at the disorder of it all. 

“Adam? Would you roll please?” Adam sat back up and rolled his dice. 

“Nineteen.” Adam seemed slightly surprised. Gansey nodded.

“Alright, so the way this works is that although you are hearing what the others are seeing, they don’t have to tell you in game. So even though you know, your character won’t know until they are told. Noah, you are too busy marveling at the rock to really notice anything else. Blue, Ronan, and Adam, you notice that there is what looks like a small button of sorts in the side of the rock.”

“I want to press the button.”

“Are you sure Ronan-?”

“Roll to press the button.”

“Okay, go ahead.” Ronan rolled his dice aggressively.  
“Eighteen.” Gansey looked shocked.

“You can’t possibly be getting this many good rolls. You’re cheating.”

“I am not! Look right here dickhead, it says eighteen.”

“Roll again.”

“Gansey!”

“I said roll again.” Ronan looked about ready to fight someone, but he grabbed his die again and threw it on the floor.

“Nineteen.” 

“Ronan.”

“You saw me roll it that time! It says nineteen!”

“Okay fine. You smash the button down with near perfection. A small door opens in the rock. Would you like to go insi-”

“YES!” This was the whole room shouting, and Gansey put his hands up.

“Alright. You all go into the door in the rock.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the dice rolls in this are going to be randomly generated, so I actually have much less control over the story than you might think. Comments are always appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	3. The First Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party has a decision to make. Will they talk it out peacefully? Probably not.

Gansey really had no clue where this campaign would be going. He had spent a good fifteen hours writing up plots and shops and putting together character sheets for monsters and now all of that work had gone down the drain. Gansey didn’t like improvising. He liked to have everything planned out for him and knowing exactly what he was getting into. That’s why he does so much research before he goes out exploring. Now he didn’t have a plan. He just had to go with the flow.

This was going to be rough.

“When you all have entered through the door in the rock, you find a passageway that seems to be heading downward. Torches are hung along the walls, and although it seems that nobody has been here for quite some time, they are lit, making the hallway glow a bright yellow-orange. Would you like to continue down the passageway?” The others nodded in agreement. “Alright. You go down this path for about ten minutes until you come out into a large circular room. Roll for perception. Possibly in order this time?”  
“Don’t push it.” Gansey gave Ronan a look, but the others seemed to agree with him, so Gansey decided to drop it.

“I got a six.” Blue looked less than pleased.

“That’s alright Jane, you can’t get good rolls all the time.” He looked at Ronan who scowled at him. 

“Nineteen!!” Noah let out a whoop and pumped his fist in the air.

“Seventeen.” Ronan looked at Gansey as if challenging him to say something. He did not, he simply looked at Adam for his roll.

“Nat twenty.” Adam sat up a little straighter, obviously pleased at this high roll streak he had going. 

“Alright. Jane, you notice a large stone fountain in the middle of the room. The water splashing out of it is sparkling like a million tiny blue crystals. Ronan, you see that there are three passages out of the room you are in, excluding the one you just came out of. Noah, you notice that there are four chests lining the walls of the room. Adam, You notice that there is a word written above each of the passages. The one on the far left reads ‘Animo’, the middle reads ‘Cor’, and the one on the far right reads ‘Corporis’.

“What the fuck-?” Blue started to say, but before she was done Adam and Ronan chimed in at the same time.

“Latin.” They looked at each other for a second and Ronan gestured for Adam to translate. Adam nodded and carefully translated the words for his non Latin speaking friends.

“Animo. That means mind. The left was corporis which means body. The middle passage had cor, which means heart.” Noah’s mouth made an ‘ooo’ shape, although the others just barely heard any sound come out.

“Okay, so mind, body, and heart. What does that mean?” Blue still looked a little confused.

“Well, it could be some sort of riddle, but I think that maybe it is referring to what the person would need to use in order to succeed down the path. The left might be filled with mind puzzles, the left with battles, and I’m not entirely sure what the heart would refer to.” Adam’s eyebrows were knit together in careful concentration. Gansey didn’t realize it would be so hard to keep in whether the others were close to an answer or not. 

“Maybe it’s some kind of moral test?” Blue was sketching plant life on her inventory sheet. 

“What do you mean?” Adam turned toward her. It wasn’t a challenge, just an invitation to continue her thought process.

“Well,” Blue released air sharply out of her nose while thinking of the right words. “You know how like, in Egyptian mythology when they went to the afterlife they would put their heart on a scale to see if it was lighter than a feather? If it wasn’t they would be eaten by a crocodile or some shit. Maybe it’s like that.”

“I don’t want to be eaten by a crocodile!” Noah looked thoroughly convinced not to go through the middle passage. 

“I mean it probably isn’t exactly that.” Blue said quickly to get Noah’s face to stop frowning like that. “It’s probably like, ‘are you going to help these people or take the money’.” Noah looked much more pleased. “As long as you’re a decent person you shouldn’t have any trouble going through there.” She looked at Adam as if asking him to confirm her theory. Adam was nodding his head slowly.

“Yeah, that sounds right. So we just have to decide what path to go down. Do we want to be judged on our wisdom, our strength, or our hearts?” Everyone looked at everyone else. Then, Ronan, Noah, and Adam all answered at the same time.

“Body.” Ronan grunted.

“Heart!” Noah yelled gleefully.

“Mind.” Adam said with certainty.

The boys all looked at each other and promptly started arguing. 

“Not everybody has the problem solving skills you do Sherlock.” Ronan shot at Adam.

“Yeah, well we’re level one so I doubt we would get very far if we had to fight every monster in the goddamn cave Lynch!” Adam shot right back, already getting a little heated.

“That’s exactly why we should go with heart! There’s nothing hard about just being a good person.” Noah’s face showed that he clearly thought he had already won.

“Yeah, that would be great Noah, except for the fact that crowhead over here made his character chaotic evil.” Adam gestured angrily towards Ronan. Ronan looked offended.

“I’m a RAVEN Parrish! And the fact that I am chaotic evil is exactly why we should be going through the fighting hallway.”

“No, it’s the exact reason we shouldn’t!” Noah piped up. “How do we know that you’re not going to side with the monsters?” Ronan gave him a slightly terrifying grin.

“You don’t.”

The three of them kept arguing and didn’t seem to be stopping soon, so Gansey turned to Blue. She was looking along with a horribly annoyed expression on her face. She seemed to sense Gansey’s attention focusing to her and she turned to look at him.

“Would you like to do something while they figure this out?” The other three paid no attention to his voice. Blue looked at the ground in thought and then looked back up.

“There were chests, right?”

“I mean, technically you didn’t see them, but it’s not like they’re going to do anything about them.” Gansey motioned to the three others.

“I wanna open the chests.”

“Alright. I would have you roll for it but uh…” Gansey looked over to Ronan who was now dangerously close to punching a hole through the floor in his rage. “You can just open them. One holds a blank piece of paper along with a bright gold writing quill. The second holds a silver sword that has a great attack damage that I will decide on later. The third holds a small flute of some kind what is made out of wood. There is still a small oval leaf clinging on to the end. The fourth holds a sphere made entirely out of crystal.” Blue nodded slowly and added all of these things to her inventory. 

“Will I be able to give these things to them later if I want to?”

“Probably.”

“Alright. I’m going to go ahead and go through the middle passage. The heart one.”

“Okay. You go through the middle passage.”

“HEY SHITHEADS!” Blue yelled so suddenly that all of the boys went quiet. Even Ronan looked slightly shocked. “I’m gonna go through the heart one so unless you wanna split up before the game even starts, I would follow me.”

“What!? Why does Sargent get to decide?” Ronan slammed his dice on the ground for good measure.

“Since you all started fighting and she was the only one who actually made a decision. You do realize that all of this is happening in real time, right? Your characters were just standing there arguing without doing anything.” Gansey gestured toward Blue and she smirked. Ronan looked outraged.

“Wait, what about the chests?” Adam asked.

“She already got all of that stuff while you were fighting.”

“WHAT? Since when does she get all the loot?” Ronan was ready to fight someone.

“Since I actually opened the chests while you guys were being annoying.” Blue crossed her arms. Ronan stared at her and she stared back. Noah looked pleased.

“So we’re going into the heart hall?”

“So we’re going into the heart hall.” Blue looked away from Ronan, but it was clear she was doing so just because she wanted to look at Noah, not because she had lost to Ronan. Ronan grumbled and started chewing on the leather bands on his wrist.

“This is probably a bad idea.” Adam looked like he would not give up that easily.

“Well, it’s too late now. You guys were too slow. I take Noah’s side.” Noah put his arms around Blue and she let out a small laugh. Ronan and Adam still were not pleased, but they knew that they were defeated. “Oh! And Noah, here, you can have this. I pulled this flute looking thing out of one of the chests. You would probably have more use for it than I would since you’re a bard and all.”

“Woah! That’s so cool!” Noah scribbled out what Blue had described onto his inventory sheet.

“Wait what? How come you’re giving him one of the things? I want my share!” Blue glanced over at Ronan, but did not give him her full attention. 

“Because you two are being assholes and Noah is not.”

“This is fucking ridiculous.” Ronan crossed his arms. Noah didn’t even seem to register the complaint.

“Gansey, can I learn more about this thing?”

“Sure Noah, but you have to roll for it.” Noah rolled his dice excitedly. 

“Eight.” He looked a little deflated.  
“Alright, you notice that there is a small word written on it, but you can’t quite make it out at this time. You can always roll again later to see if you can figure it out. You might have more luck.” Gansey smiled apologetically at Noah and then brought his attention to the whole room.

“Alright, so you guys are going through the middle corridor, correct?” Blue and Noah nodded their heads, Adam and Ronan just shared a look.

“Can you at least tell us what the other things were?” Adam looked at Blue hopefully.

“Maybe later. Once you’ve proven yourselves worthy.” Blue looked incredibly cocky. Ronan tried to glance over at her inventory but she caught him and threw her hands over her paper. “You won’t be getting anything soon if you pull shit like that!” Ronan grumbled and shoved her shoulder. Blue punched his shoulder back. 

“Alright, if everyone is ready I think we have procrastinated quite enough, don’t you?” The others stared at him, unamused. “Alright. You all walk into the middle passage, and a rock shifts behind you, covering up your way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Sorry about the weird update schedule, I have college to deal with.


End file.
